Autumn tour steps out on Halloween

Edinburgh-based shoestring company Peapod Productions will take to the road this autumn with a spooky production based on the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, M.R. James, Bram Stoker and, crucially, Ambrose Bierce.

The Moonlit Road and other ghostly tales will be performed by Philip Kingscott, who founded and runs the company, and who adapted the stories with director Andy Corelli. The company has had previous triumphs with the Reindeer Monologues, The Garden and Passing Through.

Explaining why he turned to horror for his next production, Kingscott told Æ that his parents would use tapes of books to stop him and his brother fighting on long car journeys.

“The ones we loved the most were ghost and horror stories,” he said. “I can vividly remember listening to The Moonlit Road by Ambrose Bierce [the story which forms the framework for the whole play] on a family holiday to the Lake District when I was six or seven and being completely terrified!”

Moving on to read ghost and horror stories for himself in his early teens, Kingscott loves the way a good story creeps into the brain and can stay there for days or weeks after it has first been read. A big favourite then was La Horla by Guy de Maupassant, which he has re-read several times since.

“More recently, I’ve rediscovered listening to ghost stories again, thanks to the repeats of The Man In Black on BBC Radio 4 Extra over the past few years – read by the terrifying Edward de Souza – so it seemed like the obvious choice when I was thinking of the next Peapod show to do.”

The show will open on Halloween, appropriately enough, at the Howden Park Centre in Livingston before touring round Scotland, arriving in Edinburgh for a three-night stay at the Scottish Storytelling Centre on November 13.

“I was really keen the show should open at Howden Park Centre,” says Kingscott. “I saw my first ever theatre at Howden Park; my first job was as an usher there and I attended the nearby youth theatre Firefly Arts for seven years – which I’m now on the board of and is now based in Howden. In fact The Moonlit Road is being performed in Firefly’s own space.”

The production sees Kingscott team up with Edinburgh-based director Andy Corelli, who directed him in Passing Through.

“Between the two of us we’re adapting classic ghost stories to fit the play,” says Kingscott. “We’ll then ask a professional writer to give us some feedback which we can work on in rehearsals to help create the final piece.

“Andy’s really good at making theatre which can be easily adapted to a wide range of spaces – he did to great effect with Passing Through. The Moonlit Road is being performed in 500 seaters like Carnegie Hall to tiny village halls, and has to be just as gripping a performance in either venue.”

After this autumn tour, The Moonlit Road will do a short UK tour next spring, before touring Italy and Switzerland in May 2015.

The Moonlit Road listings

Howden Park Centre, Livingston
31 October: 8pm

Harbour Arts Centre, Irvine
2 November: 8pm

Carnegie Hall, Dunfermline
8 November: 8pm

Scottish Storytelling Centre, Edinburgh
13-15 November: 8pm

The Moonlit Road will then tour village halls in the Scottish Borders including: